Custom Groupings

What are custom groupings?

Custom groupings let you organize campaigns into categories that make sense for your business — without changing anything in Google Ads. They act as virtual dimensions that you can use in the Data Explorer just like any built-in dimension.

For example, you might group campaigns into “Brand”, “Prospecting”, and “Retargeting” based on campaign naming conventions. Or group by match type, funnel stage, or product category.

Rule-based vs manual groupings

There are two types of groupings:

Rule-Based

Rule-based groupings match campaigns by name pattern. Available operators:

  • Contains — campaign name includes a string
  • Starts with — campaign name begins with a string
  • Ends with — campaign name ends with a string
  • Equals — exact match
  • Not contains — campaign name does not include a string
  • Regex — regular expression pattern matching

Rules are evaluated in order. The first matching rule wins. Campaigns that don't match any rule get a default label (e.g., “Other”).

Manual

Manual groupings let you explicitly assign specific campaigns to groups. This is useful when naming conventions aren't consistent enough for rule-based matching. You pick the campaigns and assign them to a group label.

How do I create a grouping?

  1. Navigate to your account's Groupings tab
  2. Click New Grouping
  3. Give it a name (e.g., “Tactic” or “Match Type”)
  4. Choose Rule-Based or Manual
  5. For rule-based: add rules with operators and values. Set a default label for unmatched campaigns.
  6. For manual: select campaigns and assign group labels
  7. Save

The grouping is immediately available as a dimension in the Data Explorer. No data reprocessing required — groupings resolve at query time.

Pre-built groupings

New accounts come with two seed groupings to get you started:

  • Tactic — categorizes campaigns as Brand, Retargeting, or Prospecting based on campaign name
  • Match Type — groups campaigns by Exact, Broad, or Phrase match type

You can edit or delete these, or create your own.

What are saved segments?

Saved segments are reusable filter sets. Instead of manually setting filters every time you open the Data Explorer, save a combination of filters and apply it with one click.

Segments can combine two types of filters:

  • Dimension filters (WHERE) — filter by campaign name, channel, or other dimensions. Supports contains, not contains, starts with, ends with, equals, and regex operators.
  • Metric-threshold filters (HAVING) — filter by metric values, like “spend > $10” or “ROAS < 2”.

Pre-built segments

New accounts come with two seed segments:

  • Non-brand — excludes campaigns with “brand” in the name
  • Active (>$10) — only shows campaigns with spend greater than $10

Using groupings in the Data Explorer

In the Data Explorer, custom groupings appear alongside built-in dimensions like Date, Campaign, and Channel. Select a grouping to group your data by that category.

You can combine groupings with other dimensions. For example, group by “Tactic” and “Date” to see how Brand vs. Prospecting performance trends over time.

Permissions

Anyone on the team can view and use groupings and segments. Editors, Admins, and Owners can create, edit, and delete them. System seed groupings and segments can be customized but not deleted.

ROAS Reports - Custom Groupings